Verbal overshadowing effect and the benefits of eye-closure in

audio line-up

Roon, YiEunkyung, Jo

iIIRG 2010 annual conference

Introduction• Investigators should ask ear-witnesses to describe

details of the offender’s voice before audio line-up.(The England and Wales guidelines on the use of voice identification parades advise, 2003)

• This advice bears risk to the verbal overshadowing effect which could reduce identification accuracy.

• In this study we tested whether verbally describing the offender’s voice might induce the VOE and the instruction to a ear-witness to close their eyes during voice identification parade might overcome the VOE and increase the rate of accuracy.

Verbal overshadowing effect

• The impairment of a person’s recognition ability as a

result of generating a verbal description

• TIR : Transfer-inappropriate retrieval hypothesis

• TIPS : Transfer-inappropriate processing shift

hypothesis

• Perfect and his colleagues (2002) reported a

significant effect of verbalization on voice recognition.

• They used same statement in target and foil voices.

Eye-Closure

• Eye-closure aids recall of both visual and auditory details, while suppressing recall of incorrect details.(Wagstaff et al, 2004; Perfect et al, 2008)

Eye-closure

Reduces distraction

Influences contextual retrieval

Decreases transfer-inappropriate processing

shift

Research Questions

• Is VOE induced on audio line-up that using different

statements in stimulus, target and foil voices?

• Can eye-closure instruction make the accuracy rate

higher and help overcome the VOE in audio line-up?

Experiment design

Verbal description

Control

Eye-Closure instruction

1 3

None instruction 2 4

Materials

Video clip Distracter Audio Line-up

8 voice samples saying

about their hobby.Target

present.

Cross-wordpuzzle

Procedure

• Cover story : The experiment on the improvement of the eye-witness’s memory

• All participants looked the same crime scene video clip.

• Participants were asked to resolve cross-word puzzle for 5 minutes.

• Then they performed other task for manipulation. - condition 1,2: describe the feature of offender’s voice - condition 3,4: write a composition using 9 words• Audio line-up - condition 1,3: eye-closure - condition 2,4: none instruction

Result(VOE)

1, 0정답 오답1.00.00

Count

25

20

15

10

5

0

Bar Chart

1.00.00

1, 0특징묘사 통제집단Control group

Verbal description

correctincorrec

t

No effect of VOE (1)= .29, p> .05

Result(Eye-closure)

1, 0정답 오답1.00.00

Count

30

20

10

0

Bar Chart

1.00.00

1, 0감기 뜨기None instruction

Eye-closure

correctincorrec

t

Significant effect of eye-closure (1)= 4.17, p< .05

No difference between the confidences of eye-closure(M=3.78) and none instruction(M=3.79)t(85)=-.03, p> .05

Result(VOE in eye-closure)

1, 0정답 오답1.00.00

Count

12.5

10.0

7.5

5.0

2.5

0.0

Bar Chart

1.00.00

1, 0특징묘사 통제집단Control group

Verbal description

correctincorrec

t

No effect of VOE (1)= .24, p> .05

Result(VOE in none instruction)

1, 0정답 오답1.00.00

Count

12.5

10.0

7.5

5.0

2.5

0.0

Bar Chart

1.00.00

1, 0특징묘사 통제집단Control group

Verbal description

correctincorrec

t

No effect of VOE (1)= .16, p> .05

Summary of findings

• There would be no VOE in audio line-up when we

use different statements in stimulus and line-up

process.

• Eye-closure instruction in audio line-up process

would increase the rate of accuracy.

discussion

• It is necessary to conduct a replication comparing the accuracy rate of audio line-up between using same contents of statements and different contents.

• Is female influenced more than male by eye-closure?

1, 0정답 오답1.00.00

Coun

t

25

20

15

10

5

0

Bar Chart

1.00.00

1, 0감기 뜨기

1, 0정답 오답1.00.00

Count

8

6

4

2

0

Bar Chart

1.00.00

1, 0감기 뜨기

female male

No instruction

Eye-closure

correctincorrect correctincorrect

References• Brand, A.(2004). A Web Experiment Based Enquiry into the Verbal Overshadowing

Effect. The-sis submitted to Cardiff University for the Degree of Ph. D.• Clare, J., Lewandowsky, S. (2004). Verbalizing Facial Memory: Criterion Effects in

Verbal Overshadowing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, No. 4, 739-755

• Hunt, L. J., & Harris, C. M. (2002). Verbal overshadowing in voice recognition. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 973-980.

• Meissner, C. A., Memon, A. (2002). Verbal overshadowing: A Special Issue Exploring Theoretical and Applied Issues. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 869-872.

• Mitchell, Helen F. & MacDonald, Raymond A. R. (2009). Linguistic limitations of describing sound: Is talking about music like dancing about architecture? International Symposium on Performance Science

• Perfect, T. J., Hunt, L. J., & Harris, C. M. (2002). Verbal overshadowing in voice recognition. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 16, 973-980.

• Perfect, T. J., Wagstaff, G. F., Moore, D., Andrews, B., Cleveland, V. Newcombe, S., Brisbane, K-A. & Brown, L. (2008), How can we help witnesses remember more? It's an (eyes) open and shut case. Law and Human Behavior, in press

• Wagstaff, G. F., Brunas-Wagstaff, J. Cole, J., Knapton, L., Winterbottom, J. Crean, V. & Wheatcroft, J. (2004). Facilitating memory with hypnosis, focused meditation and eye closure. International journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 52, 434-455.